How To Make The Perfect Steak

I have loved steak for as long as I can remember. It was something that went so well on the barbeque and that served with chips and sauce was heaven on a plate.

It was also the only thing that I ever remember by Dad making me for dinner!!!! The food he normally made me either involved a fried breakfast or a fried breakfast as my mum loved to cook so much.

Then in my early 20’s Dominic worked in a meat factory and would bring home amazing steak for a quarter of the price that everyone else paid. It was amazing to say that we could afford to have sirloin (or fillet) steak everyday if we wanted to.

When we moved to Portugal things stepped up a gear. We found an amazing Portuguese restaurant that served fillet steak on the stone and you could then cook it to your own liking.

We were now steak addicts!!!!

However like many other people we love to cook steak at home and not just have it as an eating out experience. We will (well Dominic will) cook the steak and I will do the chips and sauce.

Then we serve it up and enjoy a fantastic steak dinner.

But for many this is like us talking Portuguese to them. They really don’t know what on earth we are on about and don’t even understand the different cooking times or how to cook the perfect steak.

So let’s get to grips with it so that you can have amazing steak dinners whenever you like.

[Tweet “How To Make The Perfect Steak #cookingtips”]

Cooking Times

You will often hear chefs refer to how long a steak needs to be cooked for the different colours of pink. You have blue, rare, medium rare, medium, and medium to well done and finally well done.

Blue = It looks like it has just come from the butchers but has had a couple of minutes on each side and is just warm in the middle.

Rare = cooked on the outside and extremely pink in the centre.

Medium Rare = It has blood in the middle and is still a bit pink but not overly pink.

Medium = Juices should just be clear, shouldn’t be dry and no blood showing on the meat.

Medium/Well Done = A bit of juice and a bit of blackness on the outside

Well Done = There is a lot of dark colouring and totally brown and dry in the centre.

Some chefs use their fingers to check cooking times. The firmer it feels on touch the more cooked it is.

How to cook the perfect steak

To cook the perfect steak start by giving it a good slap with either a rolling pin or meat mallet and this will tenderise it. This is particularly important with sirloin or rump. You don’t need to do this with a fillet but you can if you wish to do so.

Season with salt and pepper then place it in a hot frying pan or griddle pan with a little extra virgin olive oil. You then need to turn it regularly on each side depending on how you would like it cooked.

For cooking times think of it as follows:

Blue = 90 seconds on each side in a very hot pan

Rare = 3 minutes on each side in a hot pan and then in a preheated oven for 180 for a further 2-3 minutes.

Medium Rare = 3.5 minutes on each side, then a further 4-5 minutes in a 180c preheated oven.

Medium = 4 minutes each side and then 5-6 minutes on a 180c preheated setting in the oven.

Medium/Well Done = 5 minutes on each side and then 7 minutes in a preheated 180c oven.

Well Done = 6 minutes on each side in a pan and then 8-10 minutes in a preheated 180c oven.

The above is based on 6oz steak that is an inch thick.

Here is an example of a rare steak:

When we are cooking steak I like mine medium rare and so does Dominic so it makes it rather easy to be able to cook two at once. But in reality you’ll often be cooking for one person that wants it well done and another that wants it medium rare. In these cases you put your well done steak on first as then they can be both ready at the same time.

Just Add Potatoes & Sauce

Steak is not the same without potatoes and sauce. They make the meal complete and of course you can add vegetables too if you wish.

Our favourite steak potatoes are chips, jacket potato, roast potatoes or garlic potatoes. But it depends what you prefer. If I asked Dominic he would probably say chips in that tone as if to say don’t you dare serve steak with a jacket potato!

Then for a sauce I love a cheese sauce, garlic sauce, good old brandy and cheese sauce or even better homemade mayonnaise. The restaurant (that we mentioned above that does fillet steak) serves it with mayonnaise and garlic potatoes and it is like heaven on a plate.

However you like your steak go off and make a delicious one and let me know how you got on!

Like this recipe? Then you’ll love these:

Reader Interactions

Comments

I have literally never heard of a blue steak. I’ve thought that rare was the least cooked steak you could get. I’m kind of surprised that people like to eat their steak blue but I guess it isn’t like hamburger meat so it really doesn’t need to be cooked all the way through. When I use this recipe I will be cooking my steak to medium rare and I’m pretty excited because this recipe looks great! Can’t wait to try it out!

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

Recipe Rating

Primary Sidebar

We’re The Milners

Hello we’re the Milners and we run RecipeThis.com from our country cottage in Southern Portugal. The Milners is made up of husband and wife duo Dominic & Samantha along with their kids Kyle, Sofia & Jorge. They love cooking with local Mediterranean ingredients and are addicted to chocolate. If they could cook for the rest of their lives with just kitchen gadgets then they would!.

Disclosure:

Many of our blog posts on RecipeThis.com contain affiliate links. We may earn a small commission for an endorsement, recommendation, testimonial and/or link to a third-party website from this blog. This is at no cost to you and doesn’t alter our opinion of the products we mention. Click here for more details.